Newsletter

Chicago returns to Topeka as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

Band's 49th consecutive year of touring brings them Sunday to TPAC

Three of the band Chicaco's co-founders, from left, James Pankow, Walter Parazaider and Lee Loughnane perform at the rock band with horn's April 8 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Chicago will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Topeka Performing Arts Center, 214 S.E. 8th.

James Pankow, left, and Walter Parazaider from Chicago perform at the band's April 8 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Chicago will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Topeka Performing Arts Center, 214 S.E. 8th.

From left, Robert Lamm , James Pankow, Walter Parazaider and Lee Loughnane, of the band Chicago perform at its April 8 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Chicago will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Topeka Performing Arts Center, 214 S.E. 8th.

Chicago, which in April was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Topeka Performing Arts Center, 214 S.E.. 8th.

Chicago will perform Sunday night at the Topeka Performing Arts Center with an honor the nearly 50-year-old “rock band with horns” didn’t have when it played TPAC two years ago: induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The band got its start Feb. 15, 1967, at DePaul University by Peter Cetera, Terry Kath, Robert Lamm, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Walter Parazaider and Danny Seraphine. Kath accidentally shot himself in the head with a gun he didn’t know was loaded and died in 1978, Cetera left the group in 1985 and Seraphine was dismissed in 1990.

However, the other four co-founders marshalled on through lineup changes. They are in their 49th year on the road, never taking a year off. Chicago has sold more then 100 million records, made 36 albums, five of them chart-toppers, and scored more than 20 Top 10 singles.

Billboard cited Chicago as the leading U.S. singles charting group during the 1970s.

Introduced on the second album, the band’s logo has become one of the most recognizable in rock.

The band earned a Grammy Award and other honors, but it wasn’t until Chicago topped the fan vote last year that Chicago finally earned its long-overdue place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The four remaining co-founders as well as the rest of the band’s current lineup, Keith Howland, Tris Imboden, Lou Pardini, Walfredo Reyes Jr. and Jason Scheff, were on stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony concert in April.

Fans were able to see the concert in an HBO special that also included the other 2016 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, N.W.A. and Steve Miller.

More of the band’s story will be revealed in a documentary, “Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago,” which already has earned awards at film festivals in advance of its release later this year.

However, it is performing live on stage where diehard Chicago fans want to see the iconic band.

And the group shows no signs of slowing down in spite of the co-founders’ age: Lamm, 71; Loughnane, 69; Pankow, 68; and Parazaider, 71.

Last month, in an interview for CBS’s “Sunday Morning,” John Blackstone asked lead guitarist Howland, who has been with the band more than 21 years but at 51 is its youngest member, “Have you figured out what it is that keeps these guys, now late 60s, early 70s, going?”